draft issues?

[unkeldunkel]

My beer on tap tastes watered down and lacks aroma,in the serving tank it tastes delicious. I thoroughly and regularly clean my lines,in fact last week i came in @ 11pm,soaked the lines w/ hot caustic until 8:30 am, rinsed w/ hot cs-35 and soaked an additional hour, rinsed w/ water. There was no visual debris in the rinse water and it tasted fine,but 3 days later the beer still tasted bland. Have any of you had a similiar issue? If so I would love to hear about it.


Thanks to all who respond,
Sean H.

[MikeRoy]

I don't have an answer for you on why your beer tastes like it does, but I'm curious, why caustic in your beer lines? Cleanng tanks with caustic is one thing, but I've always been told to avoid it in beer lines, especially with the number of good line cleaning products outhere that aren't...what shall we say...toxic. I don't know of anyone who's cleaning lines with caustic so perhaps this might be your problem, though it's hard to tell not being their to check out the set up and try the beer.

[scott isham]

I've been using caustic to clean my beer lines for years with no problems. In fact, evryone I know uses caustic to clean their lines. Properly rinsed, there is no issue of it being toxic or tainting beer. I kind of understand what Sean means by the beer being different sometimes from the serving tank to the tap, though I wouldn't call my beer bland, just different. Is the carbonation any different? What about the temp? Is it changing from the serving tank to the tap. Differrent carbonation and temps can have a huge impact on percieved flavors.

Cheers,
Scott

[Frankentrostjim]

caustic every 2 weeks for 3 cleanings then acid for 1 cleaning and start the cycle over again. Check dispense temp, pressure, and flow rate as Scott said, very critical, make sure there is no cross contamination (older, non barrier lines) Check glass wash chemicals and glass cleaning procedures and storage. What type of system (glycol, forced air, etc.) how many lines ? is it on all products ? length of run ? age of lines ? Hot caustic will expand lines over time

[Ted Briggs]

...and it tasted fine,but 3 days later the beer still tasted bland. Sean H.

Just to make sure I understand-- immiedatly after cleaning the beer was fine then it turned "bland" again?
If so how about the temp of the beer? Did the cleaning warm the line and thus the beer where normaly it is much colder in the lines?? What is the cold room temp vs the beer temp out of the taps> Are you poring in chilled glasses? God forbid its being "watered down" by your glycol!!!
This is a real brain teaser :confused: (Just the kind of thing that keeps me interested in Probrewer :rolleyes: )

[beauxman]

I agree with Ted's points. I would suggest comparing your temperature of the beer from your serving tank vs the temperature of your beer at dispense. You might find that your beer is colder at the tap, thus changing the perception. What temp is your glycol that runs through the python (if that is how you are setup)? God forbid that you are freezing your glassware in a chiller first, this would explain it too!
-Beaux

[unkeldunkel]

I do have a +2 degree variance from tank to tap but that wouldn't cause the change in product i am experiencing. As far as temps go i keep my walk in @ 38f chiller @ 30f(thats as cold as it gets) which yields 40f at the tap(about a 60 foot run). WTF ,Im as confused as everyone.

[BlenderCrab]

I honestly don't have an idea of what could be wrong based on what you said, but let me make sure I understand your problem. Your draft beer was tasting flat so you cleaned the lines as you described? Or was it a newly tapped beer and you cleaned the lines before you put it on?

And after you cleaned the lines, it tasted the same as directly from the tank for a matter of days then it became bland?

I would try a couple of different things to try to isolate the problem -- or maybe fix it without figuring out the problem.

If the beer tasted bland from the get-go, it could have been residual caustic in the line that the beer neutralized. If I remember high school chemistry, acid plus base equals a salt plus water. A line soaking in caustic so long might take quite a bit of neutralizing due to its sticky and slimy nature -- I guess it depends on how strong a caustic you used.

If it tasted fine at first then degraded to blandness, I would guess you have an infection of some sort at the taps (which could creep back into the lines overnight -- and with a 60 foot line it could make its way pretty far in a few hours depending on the alcohol content and acidity of the beer... and be a bitch to get rid of). Is it affecting all of your beers or just one?

I would try a couple of things. First, I would rinse the lines with the hottest water you can muster. Let the hot water sit for a while and then purge it with CO2. Run the cold beer through the line and taste it. If it's okay, then somehow the beer is staling in the line. Maybe oxygen is somehow getting into your line? That depends, of course, on how much beer you're moving through the taps on a given day.

I would next try an alternate method of cleaning your lines. We sometimes use a BLC solution with warm to hot water (depending on how hot our source decides to be at the given time). BLC is a mild caustic, but it rinses easily. We then rinse it with warm to hot water, then run a solution of Oxonia (a blend of hydrogen peroxide and peroxyacetic acid) to sanitize.

If this is an infection coming from your taps, you might want to consider preventative maintenance on them. We used to swab our taps with a solution of chlorine bleach every night at close (we have brass taps that don't particularly care for acids). Now we have plugs that go into the taps that we soak in Iodophor before we put them in.

Hope this helps. If you have any more information, please post. Hopefully we can figure this out.

[Moonlight]

If you pour a pint from the cellar, and let it warm up to the temp of a glass poured at the bar, how do they compare?

[BigWilley]

I doubt its glycol or he would have run his resevoir out by now and if all beers exhibit the problem its highly unlikely that glycol is seeping in to all lines. How would glycol get in there anyway? If you had a glycol leak it would drain pretty quickly. I would definately try letting some filtered water stand in the lines overnight and taste it in the morning to see what that tastes like. I had some old lines that would ruin one particular beer but it didnt taste bland just contaminated and after replacing all the lines the problem dissapeared.

[GlacierBrewing]

It's been my experience that I ALWAYS seem to miss the basic fixes first. So, my two cents is: are you SURE the carbonation level of the product in the kegs is were it should be?

[lhall]

Are you using a blended gas to push the beer to the taps? The wrong gas blend can cause this problem.

[edramshaw]

I would agree with the last two posts that perhaps it is a gas problem. If you are using a Guiness type gas then your beer could go flat over the course of a day or two (or three) depending on the pressure used. This is often associated with on off/watery/funky flavor.

Ed
Blue Line Draft Systems, LLC

[DancingCamel]

Have you noticed any difference in the head on the beers? If it's pouring a little foamier at the tap you could be stripping the CO2 out of the beer. Flat beer could be perceived as bland beer (apologies to CAMRA).

[Moonlight]

Perhaps the hose is not a suitable beer-quality hose and is letting oxygen in thru the walls of the hose.

[davidmeyers]

I had a similar problem, and still cannot pinpoint exactly what happened, but I will give you the facts, and you can do your own processes of elimination.

My boss allows me to take home a keg for my home draft system every once and awhile. I transfer it right from the serving tank. My draft lines are clean, kegs are cleaned and rinsed thoroughly and are well purged. I took a keg home that tasted great both from the serving tank, and the tap. Got it home (just a few miles away), and it tasted like seltzer with a little iced tea in it. The temp. is a few degrees cooler than the lines at work, but that never effected the beer this much. I am not exaggerating when I say seltzer and iced tea, and yes, the beer was full of flavor at the tavern. I have 2 beers on tap at home, so I switched them around to test my lines. The other beer (also from the brewery) tasted great through the line in suspect. I have since brought home other beers with no problems. I suspect, somehow, oxygen may have tainted my beer (though I don't know how), only because the beer began tasting like it was being served from a cardboard box. It was like drinking a fermented Sipp's iced tea from a kid's juice box. I never posted the problem, because while it was indirectly work related, it had no impact on our clientele, or our brewery. But after reading this, I thought you should know about it. It really has me puzzled, and I hate not knowing what it was, because I would hate to have it happen again in my serving tank.

[jarviw]

I know we brewers love to clean things with hot caustic, but apparently most draft lines (polyethylene lines) are really not designed to withstand high temperature (140F+, or 60C+), and there really are cases of draft line lining tearing off due to high temperatures.

so as much as I also love the idea of hot caustic, perhaps before you clean your line, read the specs printed on the draft line first... :rolleyes: :p

[edramshaw]

If it was tapped as soon as you got it home then infection is ruled out. Perhaps there was something still in the keg when you filled it like sanitizer, water or cleaner. Also is it being oxygenated when you fill the keg at all? Just a few thoughts.